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09 January, 2018

It's starting again. It's not as bad as the first time. But the behaviors are coming back. It's starting again.

My dad once told me that he noticed I was prone to wild and deranged “highs”. These "highs" consisted of me going up to people I am happy to be around and telling them I love them, or hugging them from behind, and squealing at random intervals to let some adrenaline out, loudly exclaiming how grateful I am to be alive, "life is worth living!", etc. He said these could be dangerous. I was so frustrated to hear him say this. I melodramatically asked why he insisted on being so discouraging and negative. He said that when you get to a high that high, the only place to come down is to a low low. The key is to—he placed his hands flat near his chest— “stay balanced, right here.” I rolled my eyes at this, lecturing him on how life was boring like that.

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I write when something’s wrong, I’ve noticed.

I like reading uplifting things, things with a lot of hope, so it’s upsetting to know that I take up a negative space with my words.

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On September 24 at 11:05 pm, I fling the covers off of me and stumble out of bed. I pace around my pitch-black room, holding my right arm out, my left hand thumping on my chest in a desperate attempt to steady my own heart rate. “It’s okay, you’re safe!” I try to vocalize the flurry of thoughts inside my head. “Everything’s okay, you’re fine, this isn’t dangerous.” I thump my chest after every word.

I start swinging my arms at my sides and I have a sudden urge to throw up.

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I wake up and sunlight is beaming through the folds of my curtains. I stretch and roll to the other side of my bed. I nap. I wake up and reach towards my desk, fish some dried figs out of a plastic bag. I chew on them and make note of the pile of stems I’ve accumulated. It’s dark outside. I take a nap. I wake up and the sunlight is beaming through the folds of my curtains. I stretch and roll to the other side of my bed. My bare feet slap the wooden floors as I scurry to the kitchen to refill my water bottle. I get in bed and read the same five tweets at the top of my timeline over and over until my eyes don't want to stay open anymore.

I don’t feel compelled to write when everything feels right: I don’t want to break down and analyze my life when things are smooth. No, I write when things are Large and Taking Up Unwanted Space in my Life. We are afraid of that which we don’t understand, and I cope by distracting myself with taking apart every stressor in my life, writing about it and lamenting its presence.

On this 12:42 am mid-October morning, I know two things: there is a sense of urgency and fear coursing through my body, keeping me awake; and the secret to happiness lies within the act of sharing love.

I’m sitting cross-legged in front of a long, full-length mirror. My skin is pink and dewy, my curls are in a bun, I’m wearing an old large white t-shirt, and my bare legs are folded underneath me. I decide I feel lovable. I place my pointer finger at the tip of my aquiline nose and press upwards, trying to straighten my family’s shared trait into a more traditional version of beauty. It’s a bad habit I still do, despite having accepted my nose’s shape a long time ago.

I look at my face, and I look at my shoulders, and I look at my stomach, and I look at my thighs, and my hands. I’m trying to become more familiar with them, hoping that memorizing my features will make it easier to excitedly love my reflection.

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I find comfort in habits I developed in my teens. Instantly-gratifying, non-confrontational habits.

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One of my magic tricks is being reached-out to when I need it the most. Whenever I am in deep mental trouble, or whenever I am fondly thinking of someone, I am always messaged by them, as if they knew I was thinking of them, as if they knew I needed to be spoken to.

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I was born greatly optimistic but highly impressionable.

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Someone a couple of desks over asks their friend, "What's it like to be in love with you?" I take out a piece of paper in such a hurry so that I won't forget to write the question down, that I don't hear their answer. I write it in lead. What's it like to be in love with you? I wiggle the pencil around my fingers for a few seconds. Then I write "Unpredictable, and a little testy." I underline it.

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I watch myself cry in the mirror. I laugh a little at how absurd this is.

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NOV 5, 2017, 8:21 AM: I exit my room and I bounce down my home’s staircase. A giddy little laugh escapes me. I don’t know why— just 10 hours prior, I was slowly walking up to my dad, asking him to hug me, trying to explain that I wasn’t sure what was wrong, without crying.

NOV 5, 2017, 9:15 AM: I take out a pencil and on my windowpane I write: I JUST REALIZED I’M A VERY ANGRY PERSON. I wonder whether it's unhelpful to make this observation without a clear solution in mind, but I'm feeling self-deprecative today and I let it stay.

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When I tore my meniscus after a longboarding accident, I limped all the way home. I limped through my front door, and I limped up my staircase.

My parents heard me, and from the kitchen, they asked what’s up and I said nothing much! and my sister said she got hurt! and my mother said what?! and I said no, haha, I just stubbed my toe with my board! and glared at my sister. I bit my bottom lip and continued to hobble up the stairs.

I inspected my wounds in the bathroom: the palms of my hand were scraped raw, and the back of my thighs burned. My right knee was pulsing with pain— not a pain I recognized. It felt like the second half of my leg was hanging on by a thread. My knees were fine, since I had been wearing knee pads. I tried to get a closer look at my feet: my white shoe had gotten caught in one of my wheels as I fell off the board, and I saw that my shoelace had been ripped off cleanly. One to cruelly make light of other people's physical pain, I tried to swallow my own and forced my legs to walk like they had just an hour before.

The next morning, my knee was swollen to twice its size. I couldn't move the bottom half of my body without pressing my face into my own shoulder and breathing heavily. I spent the next three days with my right leg propped up, sitting on the living room sofa.

On the second day, at five in the morning, I was rigidly sitting up, looking at infomercials on television, when my dad walked in. He put a hand to my forehead and asked me whether my fever was any better. I said yes and he looked at me for a really long time. I said "What?" and he frowned and looked away and said, "I just feel so sad." I laughed in surprise and said "Why?" and he said, "'Cause you didn't tell us you were hurt. And I know that if we hadn't checked on you, you would have never told us."

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I’m hunched over the computer in the library, my eyes feel very hot, and I can’t stop lolling my head from one side to the other. Just an hour ago I was seated next to a girl in my Marriage and Family Psychology class, where I asked her, “Are you ever so tired and so anxious that you feel like breaking out into screeching laughter?” She says no and I leave it alone. It's an hour later, and I still feel that bleary deliriousness that’s been hanging around my head all day. I laugh as I imagine how funny it’d be if I walked up the hill towards the parking garage where my car is sitting, and just straight-up fainted on the way up there. I suddenly feel like bursting out into laughter, and I look around and notice other people typing at their computers, as well. I feel pleasantly unnoticed. My smile fades, and I continue working.